Media Literacy in Primary Education. International perspective of level of literacy competence

Abstract

The knowledge society requires media literacy education of citizens, who need to be critical and responsible as receivers and producers of information. School addresses media competence as a key tool that provides the knowledge, skills, and attitudes citizens need to be competent before the mass and digital media. This work presents the results of a study with 3,782 students, aged between 9 and 12 years from 7 countries, which aimed to diagnose their level of media competence, in order to design educational strategies that respond to the needs identified. The measuring instrument was an on-line questionnaire validated for primary education students. The level of media competence detected is medium-low in the 7 countries, especially in the processes of production and dissemination of content on the Internet, related to network security. More efforts are required, mainly in Brazil, Equator, and Peru to improve their children's and young people's media competence. The obtained results reveal the need to establish a plan to improve citizen's media competence from an early age..